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The Torah · Old Testament

Leviticus 26

Covenant blessings, judgment and remembrance

General context

After commands against idols and for sabbath and sanctuary observance, the Lord sets out covenant consequences. Obedience brings promises of rain, harvest, peace, victory and the Lord's dwelling among the people. Refusal brings escalating threats of disease, defeat, failed crops, wild beasts and hunger. Further resistance leads to threats of parents eating their children, ruined sanctuaries, desolate land and scattering among the nations. The deserted land will receive the sabbath rest it was denied. The closing section speaks of confession, humbled hearts and acceptance of punishment, followed by the Lord's remembrance of the covenants with Jacob, Isaac and Abraham and of the land. Even among their enemies, the Lord says he will not destroy Israel utterly and break his covenant. The final verse locates these laws at Sinai through Moses.

Cited passages: Leviticus 26:1, Leviticus 26:2, Leviticus 26:3, Leviticus 26:4, Leviticus 26:5, Leviticus 26:6, Leviticus 26:7, Leviticus 26:8, Leviticus 26:9, Leviticus 26:10, Leviticus 26:11, Leviticus 26:12, Leviticus 26:13, Leviticus 26:14, Leviticus 26:15, Leviticus 26:16, Leviticus 26:17, Leviticus 26:18, Leviticus 26:19, Leviticus 26:20, Leviticus 26:21, Leviticus 26:22, Leviticus 26:23, Leviticus 26:24, Leviticus 26:25, Leviticus 26:26, Leviticus 26:27, Leviticus 26:28, Leviticus 26:29, Leviticus 26:30, Leviticus 26:31, Leviticus 26:32, Leviticus 26:33, Leviticus 26:34, Leviticus 26:35, Leviticus 26:36, Leviticus 26:37, Leviticus 26:38, Leviticus 26:39, Leviticus 26:40, Leviticus 26:41, Leviticus 26:42, Leviticus 26:43, Leviticus 26:44, Leviticus 26:45, Leviticus 26:46

Leviticus 26 (KJV)

1Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the Lord your God.

2Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.

3If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;

4Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

5And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

6And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.

7And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

8And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.

9For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.

10And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new.

11And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you.

12And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.

13I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.

14But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments;

15And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:

16I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

17And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.

18And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.

19And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:

20And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.

21And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.

22I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.

23And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me;

24Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.

25And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

26And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.

27And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me;

28Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.

29And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.

30And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.

31And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.

32And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.

33And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.

34Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.

35As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

36And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.

37And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

38And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

39And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.

40If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;

41And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:

42Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.

43The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes.

44And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the Lord their God.

45But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.

46These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the Lord made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.

This page shows the King James Version. In the app, reading opens in the Berean Standard Bible unless you have chosen another translation. The reader includes five translations: the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), the King James Version (KJV), the World English Bible (WEB), the Bible in Basic English (BBE), and the American Standard Version (ASV). Search covers three of them: Berean Standard, King James, and World English. Basic English and American Standard readers search the King James words.

Historical context

This is a covenant address to Israel, with promised and threatened outcomes rather than a report that each event has already happened. The passage names sickness among its threats but does not diagnose a particular person's illness. Its exile language supplies no named empire or date here. The ancestral covenants and the departure from Egypt remain explicit grounds for remembrance. The ending does not say the threats were unreal; it states that the Lord will not destroy the people utterly or break the covenant.

Cited passages: Leviticus 26:3, Leviticus 26:4, Leviticus 26:5, Leviticus 26:6, Leviticus 26:7, Leviticus 26:8, Leviticus 26:9, Leviticus 26:10, Leviticus 26:11, Leviticus 26:12, Leviticus 26:13, Leviticus 26:14, Leviticus 26:15, Leviticus 26:16, Leviticus 26:25, Leviticus 26:26, Leviticus 26:27, Leviticus 26:28, Leviticus 26:29, Leviticus 26:30, Leviticus 26:31, Leviticus 26:32, Leviticus 26:33, Leviticus 26:34, Leviticus 26:35, Leviticus 26:36, Leviticus 26:37, Leviticus 26:38, Leviticus 26:39, Leviticus 26:40, Leviticus 26:41, Leviticus 26:42, Leviticus 26:43, Leviticus 26:44, Leviticus 26:45

Literary context

Conditional openings and repeated warnings of sevenfold punishment organize the escalation. The promise that the Lord will dwell among Israel contrasts with the later threat of desolate sanctuaries. The land's enforced rest connects the consequences with neglected sabbaths. The final movement to covenant remembrance changes the ending's direction without removing the preceding judgments.

Cited passages: Leviticus 26:3, Leviticus 26:11, Leviticus 26:12, Leviticus 26:13, Leviticus 26:14, Leviticus 26:15, Leviticus 26:16, Leviticus 26:17, Leviticus 26:18, Leviticus 26:21, Leviticus 26:22, Leviticus 26:23, Leviticus 26:24, Leviticus 26:27, Leviticus 26:28, Leviticus 26:29, Leviticus 26:30, Leviticus 26:31, Leviticus 26:32, Leviticus 26:33, Leviticus 26:34, Leviticus 26:35, Leviticus 26:40, Leviticus 26:41, Leviticus 26:42, Leviticus 26:43, Leviticus 26:44, Leviticus 26:45

Key moments

  1. The promise of presence (Leviticus 26:12). The Lord promises to walk among Israel and be their God.
  2. The land receives its rest (Leviticus 26:34). The threatened desolation gives the land the sabbath rest described in the warning.
  3. The covenant will not be broken (Leviticus 26:44). Even in enemy territory, the Lord says he will not destroy Israel utterly and break the covenant.

For reflection

How does the closing promise of covenant remembrance affect the chapter without canceling its warnings?

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